Cites and discusses various forms of satire from Black American, Caribbean, and African cultures. Forms considered include oral ballads ('toasts') antebellum sermons, praise poems, mother-rhyming, ritual insult and theater. Emphasizes the agonistic element and the impossibility of performing Afro-American satire in standard English. (RDN)

The study investigated whether Nonstandard English (NSE) dialect responses to an examiner-constructed sentence completion test were congruent with and predictive of use of NSE during spontaneous conversation. It was concluded that the sentence completion test is satisfactorily congruent with and predictive of patterns of dialect used in…

Article urges a positive attitude toward ghetto speech. (DM)

The relevancy of standard versus nonstandard speech and language patterns is examined relative to its impact upon academic training of speech clinicians and upon clinical competencies. (Author)

Provides a framework of key issues surrounding the non-standard orthographic representation of non-standard language varieties. The following topics are addressed: the selective nature of orthographic choice; relational an contrastive meaning of orthographic conventions; interplay of sameness and difference in use of orthography to make claims on…

Presents findings of a study into language awareness among teachers in an area of Germany where a Central German dialect (Pfalzisch) is spoken. Reveals that in the Mannheim Suburb of Neckarau, many parents who speak a nonstandard dialect, leave it up to schools to teach standard German. Suggests teachers should have a systematic knowledge of the…

In this article, the author describes a three-month study he conducted in Ellen Hino's classroom during writing workshop. The major purpose of the study was to look at the ways this native-born teacher responds orally to students who share her own bidialectical background. Most of these students are Native Hawaiian and speak a nonprestigious…

In "The New Language of the Old West," "Deadwood"'s creator and executive producer David Milch offers an extended exposition of the television show's language: "Language--both obscene and complicated--was one of the few resources of society that was available to these people.... It's very well documented that the obscenity…

Diglossia, or the use of two forms of a language in a single speech community, is widespread. Differences between the nonstandard form, used for everyday conversations, and the standard form, used for formal occasions and writing, often extend to phonology as well as grammar and vocabulary. Most preschoolers from diglossic families are routinely…

The fiction of James Kelman is clearly not written in standard literary English. This paper examines some of the different ways in which the language of his novels and stories diverges from standard English, and discusses the extent to which these divergences contribute to his stated literary aims. It will be argued that Kelman in his fiction, is…

Examines current sociolinguistic theories concerning nonstandard English in an effort to help teachers of standard English to understand the problems facing their students and to apply their new knowledge in the classroom. (PM)

Within the past several years, many works which deal with the phonology of disadvantaged Afro-American populations have appeared. Certain difficulties are encountered in these studies. These include difficulties in obtaining data and in determining analytical procedure. For this analysis of the phonology of the disadvantaged Afro-American…

Describes how and why four bidialectal methods for teaching Edited American English failed to be completely satisfactory. (DD)

Two of the most stigmatized languages in the United States today are African American dialect and Appalachian English dialect. The attitudes many hold about Appalachia have come from the literature written about the place, the people, the cultural life of the mountain region, in general, and the spoken dialect. Arnow's "The Dollmaker,"…